scholarly journals Calculations and Expectations: How engineering students describe three-dimensional forces

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice E Miller-Young
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Spatial Visualization ◽  
Student Thinking ◽  
First Year ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Think Alouds ◽  
Do So

The premise of student-centered teaching is to respond to the ways in which students engage with the context and content of their learning, and therefore the purpose of this study was to find out how students visualize three-dimensional statics problems from two-dimensional diagrams early in a first-year engineering course. Think-alouds were conducted where students were asked to describe magnitudes and directions of various forces acting in three-dimensional spaces. Three key themes emerged: students have more trouble visualizing points behind, or vectors pointing into, the plane of the page; students may not use contextual clues to aid in their visualization; and students rely on equations to answer problems even when not necessary or even possible to do so. These findings are important to instructors in disciplines where spatial visualization is important because as they are already “experts” in this skill, they may underestimate the difficulty students initially face in approaching these problems. The value of using think-alouds to reveal student thinking as they struggle with concepts is also discussed. La prémisse de l’enseignement centré sur l’apprenant est de réagir à la manière dont les étudiants s’intéressent réellement au contexte et au contenu de leur apprentissage. En conséquence, le but de cette étude était de découvrir comment les étudiants visualisent les problèmes statiques tridimensionnels à partir de diagrammes bi-dimensionnels, dans un cours de génie de première année. Des exercices de réflexion à haute voix ont été effectués, au cours desquels on a demandé aux étudiants de décrire les magnitudes et les directions de diverses forces qui agissaient dans des espaces tridimensionnels. Trois thèmes clés sont apparus : les étudiants ont davantage de difficulté à visualiser les points qui se trouvent derrière le niveau de la page ou les vecteurs tournés dans la direction de la page; les étudiants n’utilisent pas toujours les indices contextuels dans leur visualisation; et enfin, les étudiants s’appuient sur les équations pour répondre aux problèmes, même quand ce n’est pas nécessaire ou quand c’est impossible à faire. Ces conclusions présentent un grand intérêt pour les enseignants de disciplines où la visualisation spatiale est importante car, puisqu’eux-mêmes sont déjà « experts » dans cette compétence, ils risquent de mésestimer la difficulté à laquelle les étudiants sont confrontés, au début, quand ils essaient de résoudre ces problèmes. L’article discute également de la valeur de l’utilisation d’exercices de réflexion à haute voix pour révéler ce que pensent les étudiants quand ils sont aux prises avec un problème.

IMPROVING THE SPATIAL VISUALIZATION SKILLS OF FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert V. Fleisig ◽  
Anna Robertson ◽  
Allan D. Spence
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Spatial Visualization ◽  
First Year ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Design Engineers ◽  
Successful Design

Spatial visualization skills are the aptitudes needed to mentally process three-dimensional images of objects. These skills are important to successful design engineers of all disciplines and are closely correlated to student performance in undergraduate engineering programmes. This paper reports on the metrics, curriculum, and teaching methods that have been implemented at McMaster University to improve the visualization skills of first year engineering students and modernize the course content of the mandatory first year engineering design and graphics course. Strong improvements in visualization test scores has been observed from the first week through to the last week of the course. To automate grading, the visualization tests have been implemented on WebCT. The WebCT-based visualization tests and results will be shared with other CDEN members upon request.

Ten Years of Positive Feedback on Project-Based Learning From First-Year Engineering Students’ Perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anabela C. Alves ◽  
Francisco Moreira ◽  
Celina P. Leão ◽  
Sandra Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
First Year ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Student Centered Learning ◽  
Continuous Improvement Process ◽  
On Line

Abstract Project-Based Learning (PBL) is an active student-centered learning methodology. Several schools (of varying degrees of education) have implemented, in different ways, PBL, having as common strands that the student learns in teams, and being challenged in the context of a case-scenario. In Portugal, a PBL methodology has been implemented, in the first year of an Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) program, for more than 15 years. This represents a total number above 700 students of IEM enrolled in PBL during the reported timeframe. A continuous improvement process of the PBL activities was relentlessly pursued during such period. Grounded on end-of-term on-line PBL process satisfaction questionnaires, as well as on results of each PBL edition final workshops, this paper studies and reports on a number of such achievements and shortcomings. Thus, this paper presents the analysis of the results of ten academic years of PBL evaluation process, grounded on the compiled results obtained from 2009/10 to 2019/20. Also, a synthesis of the effective findings (either positive or negative), systematically pointed out by the students, will be presented. Altogether, the PBL implementation in the IEM program has been very positive for students and teachers and worth for others to follow.

CAD Platform Independent Software for Automatic Grading of Technical Drawings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanchit Ingale ◽  
Anirudh Srinivasan ◽  
Diana Bairaktarova
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Spatial Reasoning ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Spatial Visualization ◽  
First Year ◽  
Spatial Skills ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Students Success ◽  
Mechanical Objects

Spatial visualization is the ability of an individual to imagine an object mentally and understand its spatial orientation. There have been multiple works proving that spatial visualization skills can be improved with an appropriate training. Such training warrant a critical place in the undergraduate engineering curricula in many engineering schools as spatial skills are considered vital for students’ success in the technical and design fields [1–4]. Enhanced spatial skills help not only professionals in the engineering field but also everyone in the 21st century environment. Drawing sectional views requires mental manipulation and visual thinking. To enhance students spatial reasoning, one of the authors of this study, conducted a class in spatial visualization. The course-learning goal aimed at improving first-year engineering students’ spatial reasoning through instruction on freehand drawings of sectional view. During the semester, two teaching assistants had to grade more than 500 assignments that consisted of sectional views of mechanical objects. This was a tedious and a time consuming task. Motivated by this experience, this paper proposes a software aiming at automating grading of students’ sectional view drawings. The proposed software will also give live feedback to students while they are working on the drawings. This interactive tool aims to 1) improve the learning experience of first year students, with limited CAD knowledge, and 2) introduce a pedagogical tool that can enhance spatial visualization training.

PARALLELIZING THREE DIMENSIONAL CELLULAR AUTOMATA WITH OpenMP

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (04) ◽  
pp. 349-361
Author(s):  
SANTIAGO GARCIA CARBAJAL
Keyword(s):  
Cellular Automata ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Computing System ◽  
Massively Parallel ◽  
Transition Rule ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Decomposition Procedure ◽  
Massively Parallel Computing ◽  
Transition Rules ◽  
Do So

This paper describes our research on using Genetic Programming to obtain transition rules for Cellular Automata, which are one type of massively parallel computing system. Our purpose is to determine the existence of a limit of chaos for three dimensional Cellular Automata, empirically demonstrated for the two dimensional case. To do so, we must study statistical properties of 3D Cellular Automata over long simulation periods. When dealing with big three dimensional meshes, applying the transition rule to the whole structure can become a extremely slow task. In this work we decompose the Automata into pieces and use OpenMp to parallelize the process. Results show that using a decomposition procedure, and distributing the mesh between a set of processors, 3D Cellular Automata can be studied without having long execution times.

Engineering and Art

2017 ◽  
pp. 277-291
Author(s):  
Sara B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
First Year ◽  
Student Work ◽  
Three Dimensional Modeling ◽  
Dimensional Modeling ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Principles Of Design ◽  
Aided Design

This chapter per the author discusses challenges faced by first year pre-engineering students. Also discussed are several topics taught within the curriculum including: the engineering design process, sketching, measurement, the elements and principles of design, and three-dimensional modeling. The chapter proposes a design project for engineering students that would tie all of these concepts together to provide an additional learning opportunity for students and more relevant practice of skills like isometric sketching, creating three-dimensional computer-aided design models, and measurement. Samples of student work from the project are included.

scholarly journals Spatial Visualization Skills Intervention for First-year Engineering Students: Everyone’s a Winner!

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Patrick Walton ◽  
Mark Urban-Lurain ◽  
Amanda Idema ◽  
Timothy Hinds ◽  
Daina Briedis
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Spatial Visualization ◽  
First Year

Spin-Waves in Stoner Ferromagnetic Phase of a Two-Dimensional Electron System

2012 ◽  
Vol 190 ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
A.H. Esmailian ◽  
F. Kanjouri ◽  
N. Mohammadi ◽  
M.R. Mahloojian ◽  
N. Abbasi
Keyword(s):  
Spin Waves ◽  
Random Phase ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Electron System ◽  
Ferromagnetic Phase ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Hartree Fock ◽  
Dimensional Electron System ◽  
Splitting Energy ◽  
Do So

We have studied the collective excitations (spin-wave energies) in the ground state of a two-dimensional (2D) electron system using the random phase approximation (RPA). To do so, we have calculated the magnetic transverse susceptibility in 2D electron system by Hartree-Fock (HF) approximation of Hubbard model at T=0 which is generally referred to as the Stoner model. The spin-waves dispersion of three-dimensional (3D) electron system due to its quadratic behavior starts from zero at q0 while our numerical results show that the spin-waves dispersion of 2D electron system starts from the value Δ, known as exchange splitting energy, even at q=0.

scholarly journals Comprensión espacial de vectores mediante recursos digitales interactivos = Spatial comprehension of vectors by means of interactive digital resources

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Diego Vergara ◽  
Manuel Pablo Rubio ◽  
Miguel Lorenzo ◽  
Rocío Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Spatial Visualization ◽  
First Year ◽  
Digital Resources ◽  
3D Space ◽  
Digital Resource ◽  
The Common ◽  
Virtual Platform ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
Spatial Interpretation

<p>Dada la dificultad de visión espacial habitual en muchos de los estudiantes vinculados a titulaciones de carácter técnico, en este artículo se presenta un recurso digital interactivo que ayuda a reforzar la comprensión espacial de los vectores en el espacio (que suele ser una de las dificultades más comunes entre los alumnos de primer curso de cualquier ingeniería). Esta herramienta permite al alumnado obtener ayuda para visualizar y analizar en tiempo real los cambios que se producen al variar las coordenadas de un vector: (i) el módulo del vector, (ii) su vector unitario y (iii) los cosenos directores. Esta plataforma virtual interactiva (PVI) pretende solventar, por una parte, la visualización espacial de los cosenos directores de un vector situado en cualquier octante y, por otra parte, la interpretación espacial de la posición de un vector cualquiera. Mediante el uso de esta PVI, el alumno realizará además un autoaprendizaje de tipo productivo, lo que favorece el hábito de pensar, razonar y relacionar o explicar la información.</p><p> Abstract</p><p> Taking into account the common difficulties regarding spatial visualization appearing in students enrolled in technical studies, this paper presents an interactive digital resource that helps to enhance the spatial comprehension of vectors in 3D space (this one being one of the most common difficulty detected in first-year engineering students learning). This tool allows students obtaining assistance to visualize and to analyze in real time the changes produced in a vector when its coordinates are varied, namely: (i) vector modulus, (ii) the unitary vector, (iii) the director cosines. On one hand, the developed interactive virtual platform (IVP) tries to solve the spatial visualization of the director cosines of a vector placed at any octant and, on the other hand, the spatial interpretation of the position of a given vector. By using this IVP, students will perform a productive self-learning, enhancing the habit of the key habit of thinking, reasoning and relating or explaining information.</p>

scholarly journals DESIGN-BUILD PROJECT APPROACH IN A FIRST YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSE

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Platanitis ◽  
Remon Pop-Iliev
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Academic Careers ◽  
First Year ◽  
Complex Objects ◽  
Project Approach ◽  
Three Dimensional Objects ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Build

We found that first-year engineering students often have difficulties to visualize and manipulate three-dimensional objects mentally, especially if the assembly involves multiple parts that need to work together in sequence to produce a required function. Ultimately, this lack of ability leads to poor representation of intended students’ design concepts in paper sketches, as well as poor or unacceptable detailed designs in CAD. Therefore, it is imperative that students develop their ability to manipulate complex objects in space very early in their academic careers. In this context, this paper focuses on the introduction and implementation of a challenging design-build project in the first-year engineering design course at UOIT intended to provide students with early opportunities to physically realize the spatial relationships and the three dimensional causality of the interaction of moving parts in an assembly.

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